


Unkempt Promises

by Gargant



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Gen, One-Sided Auron/Braska (Final Fantasy X)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 00:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17672546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gargant/pseuds/Gargant
Summary: Auron listens to Braska and Jecht talk about their children, and understands. He listens to them talk about their wives, and he doesn't. But either way, he admires them. And either way, he doesn't want these moments to end.





	Unkempt Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reishiin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/gifts).



When Braska and Jecht speak of their children, Auron thinks a part of him can understand. He can imagine what it might be like to raise a child. What hopes he might have for offspring of his own, what values he would want to see reflected in them and carried forward into the world. Braska speaks of Yuna with tenderness; Jecht speaks of his boy with his usual brash aplomb—but the yearning is plain in both of them, and when Auron listens to their tales he asks questions to keep them talking and dares to wonder if he, too, may some day become a father.

Jecht laughs about his son at every opportunity. Tidus is an overeager crybaby, to hear Jecht tell it, and Auron can only imagine what having an overpowering personality like _Jecht_ for a father might do to a sensitive son. But he keeps his thoughts private and suppresses his smiles when Jecht finds yet another excuse to tell the same story he's told a dozen times before. He's learned, now, that Jecht isn't quite the drunken brute Auron had first taken him for.

Braska, as always, is different. Yes, he finds humour in tales of young Yuna, and yes, he laughs about her tantrums and her tempers. But more often than that he speaks of her triumphs. How courageous she is. How he has never had to talk down to her. And sometimes, when Jecht is asleep and it's just the two of them speaking alone, Braska will look at him in a rare moment of unguarded doubt and confess that he has pushed too much on her too soon.

 _It is Sin who has pushed too much on all of us_ , Auron always tells him, and Braska smiles and calls him 'old friend', and breaks Auron's heart just a little bit more.

Auron thinks he can understand parenthood. But when they talk about their _wives_ , he has no idea what to say.

 

 

"She was always my biggest fan, you know," Jecht carries on, "But now here I am—Jecht the Guardian, hero of the people of Spira! And she ain't even gonna know about it."

There had been a time, not long ago, that Jecht would never have confessed his acceptance that he would never be returning to his Zanarkand. Auron feels as though he should offer comfort, but Jecht will only dismiss his awkward attempts. So instead he settles for something much more familiar, knowing that Jecht will hear the humour in his tone. "I'm amazed you managed to find someone who loves you even more than you love yourself."

"Hey!" Jecht bites back at him, but he's grinning. "It's not like I had any other choice, you know!"

"Because _everyone_ in Zanarkand loves you?" Braska cuts in, and when Jecht heartily agrees all three of them end up laughing. There are so many ways this pilgrimage might have been easier with just himself and Lord Braska, but even Auron has to confess that he has never made Braska laugh the same way Jecht does.

It's a good thing he's not the jealous sort.

Jecht chats on and on about his faraway wife, and Auron listens with detached fascination. It's a rare evening when Jecht talks about something other than his Tidus or his Blitzball, and in a foolish way Auron had almost let himself forget that a woman must have been involved.

In the end, Jecht and Braska speak about their wives in the same way they speak about their children. Jecht views it all through the lens of himself, more than a little selfish but not lacking for ill-expressed love. Braska, though, hardly mentions himself at all—instead he speaks of how remarkable she was, how unlike anyone else he had met before. How she changed the entire way he thought not just about the Al Bhed but about the whole of Spira; how, without her, he's not sure he ever could have undertaken this journey for the right reasons.

It's a _really_ good thing he's not the jealous sort, Auron reminds himself.

Auron tries to imagine if he could ever love a woman in his life. One proposed marriage already looms in his past, an offer he had rejected with as much careful dignity as he could muster. Even so it had led to his disgrace. Now he is here, following his heart and serving with honour, and the thought of marriage or female companionship is as foreign to him as the thought of ever abandoning Lord Braska's side.

There's probably an answer to be found in that. It isn't one that Auron is willing to embrace—not with the future that lies so close before them.

"If I could," Braska says, gazing through their campfire, "I would have liked to take Yuna to Bikanel."

"Bika-where?" Jecht butts in, as considerate as ever. Auron takes it upon himself to answer.

"Bikanel Island. A hostile land of sand and fiends, far off the beaten path of any pilgrimage. My Lord, why should you wish to go there?"

Braska looks away from the flames to consider them both for a long quiet moment, as though something he might say requires careful consideration. "I was told," He replies slowly, "That the Al Bhed make their Home there."

Jecht shrugs acceptance. He doesn't understand the implications. "My Lord," Auron says again, then coughs and wills himself to keep a calm atmosphere. "Is that true? I, too, have heard rumours of Al Bhed sightings on the island, but no one has ever found evidence that—"

"And I hope no one ever does," Braska interrupts, and although his smile is as gentle as ever Auron can hear the resolve that echoes within those words; the kind of firm will that could only belong to a true Summoner. "But yes. She told me that her family are on Bikanel, along with many other Al Bhed. She hoped that, some day, we might be able to visit together; her, me, and Yuna as well. Now, though..." This time Braska sighs, his gaze returning to the fire. "I fear not one of us will ever set foot there."

Auron considers. Auron always considers. Jecht, though? Jecht charges right in.

"Well then, let's go! We'll go get little Yuna and all of us can go find this Bikanel place. What's stopping us?"

They all know _exactly_ what's stopping them. Even Jecht, who had started this journey in ignorance, has come to learn the inevitable truth of how Braska's Final Summoning will end. Auron has wished—silently and desperately—that something could ever change Lord Braska's mind. But he has never had the ill grace to express such a desire in the face of Braska's resolve. Braska must surely have suffered enough just in reaching this decision—he needs Auron's protection, not his pleas.

But then there's Jecht. Trust Jecht to come along and say everything that Auron knows that he himself must never say. In moments like this, he actually envies Jecht's bullheadedness. Just once, he'd like to wear his emotions somewhere they might ever be seen.

Jecht challenges Braska's pilgrimage, and Braska replies the same way he always does. Bittersweet, grateful, and sad. "Thank you, Jecht. It's a promising thought, isn't it?" And how can Auron not love him, when even now he manages to smile with a light that reaches his eyes. Even now, through so much struggle, Braska shines. "Perhaps _you_ can take her there one day. It would be a good story to share with your son."

"Yeah, sure," Jecht replies, and lies back on the grass. "I hear ya. Won't say it again."

And when the sun rises the next morning, their pilgrimage continues, and Auron wonders again what _he_ might have said instead. What he might ever say to keep Braska alive just one day longer.

 

 

He is an old man, a dead man, a man with too many promises to keep. He has protected Braska's solemn daughter in one land; Jecht's lonely son in another. He has existed as part of a dream among the brilliant lights of a Zanarkand that never sleeps, and he has returned to Spira and its endless spiral of death. He is a guardian once more, walking the road of pilgrimage and knowing the truths that lie ahead.

He has survived much, and persisted through much more. But now Yuna is missing, along with the rest of her guardians. They had been trapped beneath the ice of Lake Macalania, freshly declared traitors to Yevon after confronting their corrupt Maester. Sin had appeared, and then—he had awoken here, swept to the shores of an island of sand. The sun beats down across his back; the dunes continue endlessly beyond his gaze, almost blinding bright beneath the midday heat.

This is a place he has never been, but even so; Auron knows where he is. And what choice does he have but to chuckle, low and dry, and raise a toast to the empty air of Bikanel Island.

"You remembered," He says, and knows that, somewhere, Jecht hears him. Knows that, somewhere, Braska watches them both.


End file.
